One of those skinheaded human hamburgers who ooze bile from the terraces of Millwall FC would have been stunned into silence by the junior doctor on Question Time. His temperature gauge must have climbed higher than a Hillman Hunter's on a balmy July day queuing to get into Chessington Zoo. He screamed at Patricia Hewitt, the Health Secretary, about why there weren't more jobs for him and his friends in the NHS.

All I could think was: 'Gulp! I hope he doesn't come near me with surgical gloves.' With the easy bedside manner of a crack Stasi interrogator, might his skills not be better utilised in, say, call-centre management or al-Qaeda? For I am about to say something blasphemous: does he deserve a job?

I bow to no one in my lack of admiration for Hewitt. She presides over an NHS which, depending on which figures you use, is just as inefficient or marginally less efficient than when Labour came to power: that is, before it pumped billions into an NHS that remains unaccountable to its users. It hasn't worked, as Labour was warned.

Hewitt has the unattractive quality, both on TV and in private, of making her audience feel like a class of seven-year-olds. But did she deserve quite so much rudeness from one so expensively educated?

'Thousands of doctors will be unemployed in a few months!' he screamed. 'That's your legacy! Go now!' But if there are job cuts in the army, the Defence Secretary doesn't resign. Doctors think they have a call on public funds - and sympathy - which is not enjoyed by any other profession.

Another doctor blurted out: 'Why not give them all jobs and be over-staffed for a couple of years?', suggesting he was wise to pursue a career in medicine rather than economics. Sure, it has been costly to train people for jobs that don't exist, sending doctors abroad. But this will merely go a little way to paying back countries whose medical staff we have pinched.

And I know the following will sound so mystifying to some NHS staff that it might as well be in Urdu, but is a little competition for NHS jobs so terrible? Only Gordon Brown faces less of a challenge for his desired job than traditionally confronted doctors do.

Amid the din, Hewitt made a devastating point: some junior doctors are struggling to secure posts because they insisted on specialising in non-priority areas such as plastic surgery. She suggested there might even be a shortage of takers for less glamorous posts, such as working with the elderly.

But as the insults flowed, the audience hollered. There is now an assumption that anyone in public life is fair game, not merely to be criticised, but to be lynched. A trivial example. Last week, Prince Harry was escorted from a nightclub after he was harangued by a man who called him, among other solicitudes, 'a twat'. Whether or not one takes issue with the general sentiment, why do people now think it legitimate to express it quite so colourfully?

As for the junior doctor, if he wants to earn a job, it is not enough to learn about medicine: he needs to learn some manners as well.

Come on, Tamara, of course men are the weaker sex

Tamara Mellon is a cobbler by trade; she talks cobblers about men, too. The Jimmy Choo creator has taken the witness stand to sink her crocodile-skin stiletto into the reputation of her ex-husband, Matthew, who is accused of trying to spy on her.

Her whinge list is stacked higher with complaints than one of her impossibly high heels: Matthew behaved like a child, was absent-minded, totally incapable of dealing with money, missed planes and - get this - 'a day doesn't go by when Matthew doesn't lose his keys, his mobile or even his wallet'.

The longer she went on, the more men in the court must have scratched their heads in puzzlement, because she paints Matthew as a pretty decent bloke. Or at least a bloke. Was she a defence witness in disguise?

Losing stuff is what men do; being crap is what we are. If Ms Mellon meant any of this as criticism, she would have lost any male listeners; not out of misogyny, just bafflement. I receive round-robin emails most days from (male) friends that read: 'Sorry, got hammered last night, left mobile in taxi; please re-send your numbers.'

I have the 'lost and stolen credit cards hotline' stored in my phone. Bank statements? Never opened one. Planes? The sentence: 'I'm sorry sir, the gate has just closed' is as familiar to me as the drumming of rain on a bank holiday car roof. Forget car keys; I've lost cars.

And so has every bloke in Britain. If these were grounds for divorce, all men would have been booted into bachelor bedsits.

Flagging up male crapness is about as revelatory as remarking that Britney Spears could do with a new wardrobe assistant. Tamara even expresses surprise about Matthew's 'slurred speech'. It's no great mystery, Tamara: look in your wine cellar. Further, she says he needs a nanny, mother, wife and best friend 'embedded into one superwoman'. Er, hello? Didn't you read the job description?

The couple met at Narcotics Anonymous, mildly less propitious for finding lasting love than Lord Browne's choice of dating service. Wasn't it in rehab Liz Taylor picked up some of her husbands? Even so, it's strange that a woman who has trousered (skirted?) £180m turning women back into objects of desire should come over all Germaine Greer. Men gave up the fight years ago. We know women are superior in every way. So please stop boasting about it.

I lost, so no more Mr Nice Guy

Well, my standing in the local elections could have gone worse: I could have won. But my ward was hardly a key target, being mildly more conservative than Texas. Last time, my party, the Liberal Democrats, didn't even contest it. So Nick Robinson was not there to record that this time we scored 40 per cent; good, but not good enough. Our cottage hospital will probably close, forcing the elderly to struggle to a far-afield hospital, the Kent and Sussex (known as the Kent and Snuff It).

I won the vote of the poor and the gentry and, according to exit polls, the one-legged prostitute (retired) demographic. But the genteel middle class voted for my genial Tory opponent, often by post, before (I add chippily) swishing off to their Sardinian villas. I can say stuff like this now because I no longer have to be nice to people, the worst aspect of being a politician. Boy, must Tony Blair have stored up some grouchiness he's just itching to unleash.

Uniquely, in our village, we vote in the pub and on election night, the Rock was rocking. But while there was talk of late swings, several floaters ended up on the floor. Just like Gordon Brown in Scotland.

Only those who've never lied dare condemn Lord Browne

Why shouldn't Lord Browne have lied? This is the point the spitters and smearers ignore. Surely it is taking our belief in full and frank disclosure a little far to expect the then head of BP to have chirruped at cocktail parties: 'Do let me introduce you to my rent-boy lover who I bought online from a gay escort agency called suitedandbooted.com. Boy, it provides a good service.'

(Or, rather, did: it now announces it is 'down for technical reasons'.)

The honest answer is we all lie and any of us with such a secret would have covered it up. And if you wonder why, look at the prurient copy following Browne's 'disgrace'.

Ah, Fleet Street friends counter, wouldn't you be equally interested if a straight tycoon was knocking around with a female escort called Bouncy Bertha?

Well naturally my eyes would boggle over every last mischievous word, but I would have no right to read it and the scandal would be much smaller.

Each public-interest argument is limper than the last. Gosh! Browne told his lover about meetings. Well, after the old: 'Had a good day at the office, dear?', every household witnesses indiscretions. I tell my wife work secrets.

The only basis for thinking Lord Browne was wrong is you don't approve of lovers who are a) gay and b) retired prostitutes and c) Canadians, who are invariably dull. But what is that to anyone else?

Outing is vicious, pursuing Ted Heath, beyond the grave and forcing old friends like Bill Deedes to insist Heath would not have 'jeopardised his steady ascent up the greasy pole'. Quite. For three decades, the ghost of Jeremy Thorpe has haunted public life after his career was killed by another impecunious young man.